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thomblake comments on Raising the Sanity Waterline - Less Wrong
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Actually, I had a specific meaning in mind for "mere" in that context: a fact, devoid of the meaning that you yourself assigned to it. The "mere fact" that Starbucks doesn't sell naughty underwear doesn't make it something to be unhappy about... it's only a problem if you insist on reality doing things the way you want them. Same thing for the existence (or lack thereof) of religious people.
So are you then denying meanings that come from other sources? Culturally constructed meaning? Meaning that comes from the relations between concepts?
One of the best things about being human is that I insist everything happen the way that I want it to. If it doesn't, then I overcome it by replacing it, fixing it, or destroying it.
Nope... but they're stored in you, and represented in terms of common reinforcers (to use EY's term).
You can only do that in the future, not the past. Religious people already exist, so anything bad you might feel about that fact is already pointless.
Only if you think emotion can't influence behavior. Feeling bad about religious people existing leads Dawkins to campaign against them, which is intended to stop people from being religious. It's sortof a virtuous circle. Do you think our feelings and actions only matter if they can change the past?
And if he didn't feel so badly about them, he might campaign in ways that were more likely to win them over. ;-) He seems far more effective at rallying his base than winning over the undecided.
In fact, it might be interesting to objectively compare the results of sending negatively- and positively- motivated atheists to speak to religious groups or individuals, and measure the religious persons' attitudes towards atheism and religion afterwards, as well as the long-term impact on (de)conversions.
I would predict better success for the positively-motivated persons... if only because positive motivation is a stronger predictor for success at virtually everything than negative motivation is!